A Phone Call for the Chaotix
by Ceciliavonjoy
Summary: The Chaotix get a call! Can the bumbling detectives impress their potential client? No! But can they help him anyway? Hopefully!


**Writing prompt: "That's not how I remember it." with Shadow and Espio**

The Chaotix Detective Agency. An elite group of ace detectives, doubtless on another case involving daring deeds, the worst of criminals, and the greatest treasures of this world. Only the toughest and most cunning of investigators could emerge from Eggman's lairs as often as they did with barely a scratch on them.

They were napping. Vector was at his desk, his snoring mistakable for a chainsaw, or possibly a jackhammer. Charmy was fast asleep, curled up on the couch on the right side of the room. By the arm of his couch, on the side facing Vector's desk, was a side-table with a dented, cordless landline phone. In the left corner by the door was Espio in a yoga pose, eyes closed and breathing slowly. It was sort of amazing that he could sleep like that.

The phone rang, very loud in such a small building.

Vector's head popped off his desk mid-dream. "Wargh! I didn't steal your pastries, Miss Vanilla-!"

"Ooh!" Charmy awoke instantly and took off. "Phone's ringing, phone's ringing!" He buzzed around the room with a singsong voice, "Phone's ringing!"

"Wh- Espio!" Vector roared over Charmy's racket. Espio jumped from his seat in the corner, startled awake. "Get the phone!"

Charmy spun over Vector's head, and dodged his flailing attempts at catching him. "Phoooone's ringing!"

"Why me-? Never mind." Espio stood up and hurried over to the phone, definitely not while doing the Naruto run. He ducked under Charmy swooping through the air before picking up the phone, shutting it up mid-ring.

Espio recited the goofy phone intro with all the professionalism he could muster. "Hello, you've reached the Chaotix Detective Agency, where wrongs are righted and karma is collected." Whatever that meant. He'd given up asking Vector about it. "How may we fight crime for you today?"

" _Who is this? What is your name?"_

The voice was familiar. Sounded male, relatively young, clipped, serious. It was warped enough by the phone, though, that he couldn't place it immediately. "Espio the chameleon," he answered, suspicious. "Do I know you?"

" _Maybe."_

Charmy popped his head in. "Who is it?"

Espio jumped. "I don't know yet-" He hurried to put his hand over the receiver before whoever it was heard them being less-than-professional. "Keep playing with Vector. I'll let you know."

Charmy considered this for a second. "Hm...ok!" He flew back to Vector.

Espio returned to the phone. "Sorry. What do you mean 'maybe'?"

" _I've been...told we met,"_ The voice became slightly hesitant, _"but my recollection is...I need you to-"_

"Knew I shoulda answered the phone instead," Vector grumbled in a muffled voice. "Get off my schnoz, Charmy."

"Nuh! You can't shake me off!"

"Bet you I CAN, you-!"

Espio gave up. "Hold on," he said to the phone. He held the receiver and turned around to his coworkers. "Can you two keep it down? I can't hear our potential client."

Vector's wild head shaking halted. Charmy was upside down, clinging to his nose and still swinging back and forth. "Whoa...uh, sorry."

The croc's voice was muffled again. "Our bad. We've got it, Espio."

"Sure you do." That should buy him five seconds. Espio went back to the phone. Behind him Vector grabbed Charmy off of his snout. "I'm back. Sorry. Again. You need me to do what?"

" _Is something over there blocking the connection?"_

"I don't wanna wait. Who is it, who is it?" Charmy bounced up and down on Vector's desk. "Is it the girl scouts? Do the girl scouts call people? If it's the girl scouts I want thin mints!"

"Be quiet, Charmy!" Vector yelled, "He's on the phone!"

"Nuh! YOU be quiet!"

"I TOLD YOU TO BE QUIET FIRST!"

"Technically, yes," Espio said calmly to the phone, Vector still yelling and Charmy giggling in the background. "But this is as good as it's going to get over here. Why is it you've called?"

" _My name is Shadow the hedgehog. Do you know who I am?"_

Espio paused, unsure how to answer. Strange. Usually when he heard a sentence like that, it was somebody trying to say, 'Don't you know me? I'm important; you should have heard of me'. And this was actually someone he'd heard of, too.

But…this was different. He sounded like he really didn't know.

Better be thorough. "We've met. The last time was in Eggman's computer systems, a few months ago. I've seen you before then, but we didn't speak much. So other than that, no."

" _Hm."_ Shadow was silent for a moment. _"Tell me your recollection. Within the computer itself?"_

"Espiooo, who is it?"

"Charmy, quit bugging him!"

"But I wanna know who it is!"

"Yes." Espio held the phone as close to his ear as it would go. "We were trying to hack Eggman's computer. You wandered in at the right time and assisted us. It had a…a machine of some kind that could convert people into a digital self, to wander in a virtual version of the computer's data. Does that sound familiar?"

" _It does."_ He sounded relieved. _"The scenery was…there were floating panels, and towers with glowing lines of color. The doctor's robots were there...along with some Black Arms. They were invading his systems at the same time we were. Is this correct?"_

"Yes, it is." Espio nodded, not really thinking whether it could be seen over the phone. "It was an abstract, deadly kind of place."

" _What did I do then? I think I abandoned your objective to find the chaos emerald on my own."_

Well. Setting aside that Shadow seemed not to know what he himself did, which was concerning, that wasn't what happened. How is he going to react to being contradicted? "...That's not how I remember it. I did think it was odd, but-"

"Bwa!"

Espio jumped and fumbled the phone in his hand. "Gah-! Charmy!"

"I wanna know who it is!" Charmy was almost in Espio's face now. "You're taking too long!"

"Alright, Charmy, that's enough!" Vector had finally gotten out of his desk. His very large hand came down and gripped Charmy's helmet. "We are leaving Espio to answer the phone!"

Charmy's voice was engineered to be a level of whiny only six year olds could achieve. "But Vectooooor, he won't tell me who it iiiiis!"

"Too bad!" Vector pulled him away. "Now let's go!"

The croc dragged Charmy out the door, Charmy still yelling about the phone.

Oh good, they've left- Oh no, Espio realized, Shadow could hear that whole thing. He must think they're total idiots. "...They've left." He said, sheepishly. "Sorry. Again."

Shadow's voice bit with impatience. _"What did I do, Espio?"_

"Right, right- You didn't leave immediately. You stayed and assisted me in the search for Eggman's databases. Then once we did that, we were jumped by a program that looked like Eggman, called the Egg Breaker. You were ferocious against it. After that we exited the digital world, and went our separate ways."

" _Alright."_ He sounded calmer. _"What was odd to you about that?"_

"Well…that you stayed to help at all. It's not like we're friends of yours."

" _That's true. You aren't. I don't believe you ever were."_

How blunt. Not a fan of politeness, is he.

Another voice, a woman's, said something on Shadow's end.

" _Yes, I know he's helping-"_ Muffled, further away from the phone. The female voice sounded like she was scolding him. A girlfriend or his mom? _"That's not what I-… But… I was_ _ **not**_ _being rude, it's the truth-... Ok, Rouge, fine. I won't."_

His voice became clear again. _"Espio. For whatever reason, that course of action suited me at the time. Do you have any idea where I came from, or where I went from there?"_

Shadow must not have meant for him to hear the part with Rouge. He'll just pretend he didn't hear anything. At least one of them should be professional here.

"Sorry, no," Espio answered. "All I know beforehand is that you entered the same Eggman building as us. I was occupied with casework immediately afterwards and didn't take note of where you went."

The other end swore.

Rouge said something stern that Espio couldn't make out.

" _...Thank you anyways."_

Well, it's not the worst grudging apology he's ever heard. "Not a problem. Anything else? I could ask my coworkers if they met you separately around that time."

" _That...would help."_ He sounded mildly surprised, perhaps at Espio choosing to continue talking to him. _"What were their names…Barmy and Hector?"_

Don't laugh- Espio hastily covered the receiver and snorted.

"Ah- Almost," He said, trying to be professional again. "Charmy and Vector. I'll go find them."

The door opened, and Espio turned his head. Charmy and Vector walked into the office, Charmy holding an ice cream bar and seeming much calmer.

"Actually, wait," he said back into the phone, "they're here now. With whom would-?"

He glanced at Charmy occupied with his ice cream, being quiet for once.

"...Let me get Vector on the line. Hold on."

"Oh, they wanna talk to me?" Vector sounded flattered. "Do they need the advice of an ace detective?"

There were so many not-polite ways he could respond to that. They do, Vector. Tell me when you find one. "...Just take the phone, Vector."

The croc took the phone up, and greeted it. "Vector the karma collector speaking." A moment's silence. "It's a metaphor for being a detective, alright? You're like the 20th person to ask. Now who is it I'm talking to?"

Vector lit up in recognition. "Oh, really? Well, hey, my man! What's up?" He spoke to the phone like it were an old friend. "I haven't seen you since the computer room! How've you been?"

What Espio could hear of Shadow's voice sounded increasingly confused.

"Huh? Dontcha remember? Of course I know ya! Met ya twice during the alien invasion, didn't I? …The what? Oh, well, the computer room was somewhere I was tryin' to get to, in one of Eggman's labs. I asked you if you wanted to help me find it, and you said yeah. Well, ok, you didn't say yeah, you just kinda went with what I doing, but you know, that's pretty much the same thing.

"Then when we finally found the place, the creepy head honcho alien was in there! Totally weird, right? We kicked his butt, of course. It was easy. Or it looked easy from where I was standin', watching you fight him. And then, uh, lemme see... Oh, then you were all sad about being an experiment of the military or something. It was REALLY awkward; you gave a super dramatic speech about it, and-"

The other end spiked with noise and Vector flinched the phone away. "Gah, no need to yell! I can skip that part! Geez," he muttered, "not my fault you asked…"

A pause. "Eh, what?" He brought the phone up cautiously. "Oh, yeah, that was before. The computer you and Espio went in was _before_ the computer room thing. Different computers. ...Eh, no, uh...not exactly." Vector shook his head a little. "All I know is you left, but that's all."

"Sure, it's ok. Sorry I couldn't do more," Vector said. "What? Oh, yeah! I'll go ask him. Charmy!"

Charmy was sitting on Vector's desk again, fiddling with the popsicle stick that had been in his ice cream bar. He looked up. "Wha?"

"You get to answer the phone for once, Charmy. It's Shadow, you know, the spookmiester."

"Ooh!" Charmy dropped the stick on the desk and fluttered into the air. "I do know him! Gimme!"

He snatched the phone out of Vector's outstretched hand.

"Hi! Shadow? Heya! It's me, Charmy Bee! Uh huh, you helped me find the secret discs on that island! It's so cool that you called, you're so awesome at fighting robots and stuff, and you haven't called me annoying! Not once! Lotsa people do that, you know."

Charmy listened for a moment. "Uh...hang on." He looked at Vector. "Hey, where did you send me to find the secret discs? Like, what was the name of the place?"

"Prison Island!" Vector said, "We needed them for a case, and GUN was busy, so it seemed like a good time to go in."

"Ok, thanks- Hey," Charmy said into the phone, "You still there? Awesome, ok, Vector says it was Prison Island. We stole them behind GUN's back for a case!"

"Er," Vector suddenly remembered that Shadow worked for GUN now. "Maybe don't word it like that, Charmy..."

"When was it? Uh, I dunno. But after I got back with the discs, I helped Vector and Espio find Eggman's computer! They wouldn't get anything done without me. Huh? Oh, hmmm..." Charmy concentrated, thinking hard. "Oh, yeah! You appeared and gave the computer an awesome karate chop, and then you and Espio skidooed right in! I wanted to go too but Vector said no. I would have been really helpful if he'd let me."

A question was asked and Charmy nodded wildly. "Yeah! I'm really super sure! That's definitely the order it happened. It was like hours apart. Not very long. "

He grinned. "Aw, thanks! No problem, Shadow!"

Espio side-eyed Vector. "So he's grateful to Charmy, but not us."

Vector shrugged. "Eh, one outta three ain't so bad…I mean, bein' nice to the kid's good, right?"

"Sure. If you say so."

Charmy hadn't heard them. "Ok, buh-bye! Hey, be sure to call back sometime! Uh-huh. Sure! Oh, bye again!"

Charmy leaned over the desk and set the phone back in its stand.

"So, Charmy?" Vector took a step forwards. "What'd he say?"

"He stopped to tell the lady next to him that I thought he was cool!"

"Uh...that's great, but what ELSE did he say?" Vector tried again, "Do we have a case now? Or did he just wanna ask us stuff."

"Oh, he was just askin' stuff."

"Huh. Well," He turned to Espio. "I'm glad we could help him, but it's too bad I can't make phone consultations billable hours. We'd have made…" Vector counted on his fingers, adding numbers under his breath. "AT LEAST five dollars."

"Indeed," Espio said dryly.

Charmy sighed and lowered out of the air down onto the desk. "Whatever phone console taters are, I'm done. I wanna nap."

"He did interrupt our repose."

"Yeah," Vector said, "and our naps too."

Espio snapped his gaze up at Vector, and then lowered it again, deciding not to say anything. Proper ninja do not insult their bosses.

Vector circled around the desk and plopped down into his office chair. "Well, you know what I always say. A well-rested detective is an effective detective."

"It's certainly an effective excuse to nap all day…"

"What'd ya say, Espio?"

Oh shoot, he'd said that out loud. "Uh- Nothing," Espio said. "Take your nap, and I'll resume meditating."

Vector leaned back in his chair, making it creak. Charmy was curled up on his desk, apparently already asleep. "M'kay then, Espio," the croc said, as quietly as he could muster with the sleeping child right there, and settled back to relax.

Espio nodded, and returned to his corner of the room. Sat down, struck a ninja-like pose, and totally didn't nap like his coworkers were doing.

And so the detectives rested, waiting for a job that actually paid.


End file.
